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The Science behind Genius FinderTM

The Genius Finder is based on the psychology of individual differences and the theory of cognitive diversity.

In the Genius Finder, we aim to capture the range of work-related skills that vary per individual and environment. From that, we analyse strengths and signpost strategies to compensate for difficulties. The Genius Finder is based on robust psychological evidence and has been subject to psychometric scrutiny [PND1], which has found it to be a scientifically reliable and valid measure.

The Genius Within Approach

demo spiky profile chart

Since 2011, Genius Within has provided workplace performance coaching for over 20,000 people, supporting them to work at their best. We have synthesised the specific behaviours and skills that contribute to their effectiveness at work: our clients’ strengths and their struggles. Our findings expand the typical platform of psychometric assessment to include a wider range of experience, finding some of the more hidden aspects of workplace performance and putting those more usually measured together in a new style. Whereas many psychometric assessments start with the average, or norm for the population, we have started with the experiences of disabled and neurodivergent people, and arrived at an assessment tool which will be both accessible and useful for all people.

Insight Into Strengths

Our observation is that when our clients have a difficulty, they stop remembering their strengths. This leads to cycles of worsening self-esteem and confidence, which can make a simple problem worse. The Genius Finder takes a balanced approach to skill profiling, helping to uncover strengths that might be taken for granted.

Our Range of Assessed Skills

We elicited the following thirteen skills:

Social Communication
Literacy
Numeracy
Reading Concentration
Self-organising
Memory
Motion and Balance
Creativity
Typing
Managing Emotions
Manual Dexterity
Sensory Needs
Spatial Thinking

These have been verified with psychometric analysis of the questionnaire, and have achieved a good level of reliability and validity.

Crystallised Intelligence

Cognitive ability is thought to comprise of both intelligence that is innate, and that which is learned . ‘Crystallised intelligence’ refers to ability that has been acquired through study and education, both formal and informal. For example: literacy, vocabulary or maths ability.

Visual-motor Integration

Our ability to see how things should move or fit and then move them accordingly is known as visual-motor integration. Visual motor integration is essential for the delivery of many roles and can cover tasks as basics as typing and handwriting, all the way to surgery and crane operation.

Emotional Intelligence

Salovey and Mayer introduced the theory of emotional intelligence (EI) in the late twentieth century, as a way of explaining how some people are able to display social skills in a way that translates into job performance. Emotional intelligence forms part of what we are measuring, but aims to divert away from the areas of EI that are related to socially and gender bound behaviour (e.g. all women are nurturers). Like crystallised intelligence, emotional intelligence can be learned and so neurological deficits in hot executive functions do not necessarily predict performance if someone has worked to improve their emotional intelligence.

Sensory Processing

Brown and Dunn defined the experience of heightened sensory processing within a scale, that allows us to categorise the full range of experience. It is important to note that sensory sensitivity can be both good and bad. If you are a chef or sommelier, enhanced taste is an advantage. If you are a regular employee who needs to eat at a cafeteria it can inhibit your inclusion.

Neurodiversity

In neurodiversity research, there are a number of different neurotypes identified as neurodivergent (for example ADHD, Autism, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia) which vary in terms of their abilities in crystallised intelligence (e.g. literacy), visual motor integration, emotional regulation and sensory processing. Most neurodivergent people have a ‘spiky profile’, in which the difference between their strengths and challenges are significant. Identifying spiky profiles has proved a useful method for reminding clients of their strengths, identifying areas of focus and understanding how well their job matched their skills.[PND1]

More recently, researchers at Cambridge University [1] have identified that neurodivergent skills map onto three broader categories – language ability, management of ‘cold’ executive functions related to processing and organising and lastly ‘hot’ executive functions related to communication and emotions. Compared against this model, our thirteen categories incorporate the needs of neurodivergent people, but also a range of different disabilities.

Psychometric Principles

The Psychometric Technical Manual presents detailed data on the psychometric properties of the Genius Finder. This data demonstrates that the Genius Finder meets the necessary technical requirements with regard to reliability and validity.

Reliability

The reliability of a test assesses the extent to which variation in the test’s scores is due to true differences between people on the characteristics being measured – in this case a set of 13 skills – or to random measurement error. Reliability is generally assessed using one of two different methods; one assesses the stability of the test’s scores over time (test-retest), the other assesses the internal consistency, or homogeneity, of the test’s items. The Genius Finder has been assessed several times for internal consistency, with three samples of 534, 1232 and (XXX) individuals. We have not conducted test-retest, as we expect scores to change over time as people improve their experience using our strategies, or indeed if they change jobs.

Validity

The fact that a test is reliable only means that the test is consistently measuring a construct, it does not indicate what construct the test is consistently measuring. The concept of validity addresses this issue. As leading psychometrician Paul Kline noted “a test is said to be valid if it measures what it claims to measure”. An important point is that a test’s reliability sets an upper limit for its validity. That is to say a test cannot be more valid than it is reliable, because if it is not consistently measuring a construct it cannot be consistently measuring the construct it was developed to assess.

The Genius Finder has been assessed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to assess for construct validity, against two samples of 534 and 1,232 individuals working in various companies and departments. The demographic data of the which neurotypes experienced difficulties in which areas also provides a form of concurrent validity.

References

  1. (see: Astle et al., 2019, 2023; Jones et al., 2021; Siugzdaite et al., 2020)
  2. (Cattell, 1963)
  3. (Beery & Beery, 2010)
  4. (Salovey & Mayer, 1990)
  5. (Brown & Dunn, 2002)
  6. Kline (2016)

Glossary of Terms

An overview of the theoretical constructs behind the Genius Finder.

FactorTheoretical Construct
SensorySensory processing
LiteracyLanguage, crystallised intelligence
Self-organisingCold executive functions
NumeracyCold executive functions, crystallised intelligence
CreativityCold executive functions
Social CommunicationLanguage, cold executive functions, emotional intelligence
Motion & BalanceCold executive functions, visual-motor integration
MemoryCold executive functions
Reading for DetailCold executive functions, crystallised intelligence
DexterityVisual-motor integration and cold executive functions
TypingVisuo-motor integration, cold executive functions, crystallised intelligence
EmotionsHot executive functions, emotional intelligence
Spatial ThinkingVisual-motor integration and cold executive functions